Statue of Liberty Reopens to Visitors Despite Government Shutdown

The government may be shut down, but the Statue of Liberty is back, people. After closing this past weekend, the National Park Service-administered site—which saw 4.5 million visitors in 2016—reopened on Monday morning, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced. “New York State will keep the Statue of Liberty open,” the governor said during a Sunday press conference in lower Manhattan. “The Federal government's dysfunction has tried to close it down symbolically. We will keep it open literally,” at a cost of $65,000 per day, the governor’s office said. The money will come from the state’s tourism budget, the governor said.

Before Sunday’s announcement, Liberty Island, its namesake statue, and Ellis Island—all collectively part of the Liberty National Monument—were closed to visitors. Other National Parks Service sites in New York City, like Federal Hall National Memorial, the Stonewall National Monument, and the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site, reported that they’d be unable to provide any services, including restrooms. Even the NPS website is in shutdown mode: An alert at the top of NPS.gov warns potential park visitors that “access may change without notice, and some parks are closed completely.”

Statue Cruises, the private company that runs ferries to Liberty and Ellis islands, says it will resume trips today. As of this writing, there was plenty of availability for both the noon and 1 p.m. departures for the island.